I’ve been obsessed with goal-setting systems for years. Probably a mix of being a millennial, a former corporate designer, and someone who prefers structure over chaos.

I’ve read the books, tried the systems, and failed many times. What I learned is that goals often fail because they’re disconnected, vague, or unsupported by any real system.

Today, I want to share how I think about goals and metrics in both design projects and design careers, in a way that’s realistic and actually usable. Test it yourself!

Level 01

For a long time I thought goal-setting was a PM thing. In reality, every designer ends up doing it anyway. Especially in lower maturity orgs, freelance projects, or solo work.

Level 02

In an ideal world, companies have clear OKRs and KPIs. In real life, it depends. Designers often have to connect the dots themselves.

A simple goal chain can look like this:

When this chain isn’t clear, designers default to a list of backlog tasks defined by a PM instead of outcomes. As a result, it becomes much harder to explain design decisions and position yourself as a mature designer, especially in portfolios.

Level 03

Many designers get stuck looking at metrics they can’t influence directly. These are called lag metrics. They describe ultimate outcomes and impact.

They show what the business cares about most in the long term. The problem is that they’re hard to connect directly to day-to-day design work.

Your job as a designer is to identify lead metrics. These are the signals you can actually influence through design decisions.

This doesn’t mean you should ignore lag metrics. They’re great for keeping the big picture in mind and for summarising impact in your portfolio. But they won’t tell you what to do tomorrow.

Lead metrics tell you if you’re moving in the right direction before business results show up. They also give you a sense of control, which builds confidence and often leads to higher job satisfaction.

And if no one tracks them in your team, you still can. That’s what I ended up doing in most of my design roles too (lucky me, hehe).

Level 04

Every project either gives you something back or slowly drains you.

Many designers work in environments where they’re handed tasks from a backlog. Things like “design a new product card”. As a result, design discussions often stop at UI polish.

Even if you work in a setup like this, you can still change how you think about your role and how you lead your work. Take your career seriously, and others are more likely to do the same.

One project won’t define your career, but patterns across projects will. The skills you build, the problems you solve, and the decisions you make add up over time.

If you don’t know where you’re heading yet, lead with curiosity. Working on things you genuinely care about makes burnout much easier to avoid.

Level 05

For both your career and projects, you need a way to stay in control. That’s what gives you a sense of ownership. Below is what I use.

Designers are visual people. I am too. But we’re also analytical and intentional in how we make decisions. So what kind of systems work best for us? In my experience, visual ones.

Diagrams or trees work best.

They give you an instant, holistic view of the situation. They also make great artefacts for project presentations and discussions, because they help others understand the bigger picture quickly.

For tracking and controlling progress, I rely on scorecards. I don’t mean massive Power BI dashboards, those can get overwhelming fast. I’m talking about lightweight ways to measure both UX work and your own career direction.

Qualitative answers matter too, because not everything can or should be reduced to a number. After a week or a month, you can feed this data into AI (securely, of course) and get a clear summary.

Patterns show up much faster when you track them.

The same applies to your career. When you track energy, outcomes, and learning, you stop guessing, but you suddenly know what you want to do.

And that’s when goals stop feeling heavy.

🫶 Together with Framer

A portfolio is more than screens. It’s structure, flow, and how your work is experienced by recruiters. Framer makes it easier to think about portfolios that way.

You can explore layouts on a flexible canvas, refine content directly on the page, add small interactions, and publish without handoffs or rebuilding your designs elsewhere.

For designers who want their portfolio to feel polished, intentional, and easy to review, this workflow makes a real difference.

You can try Framer here